


Two Vignettes

by MaureenLycaon



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27861725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaureenLycaon/pseuds/MaureenLycaon
Summary: Two short stories. Aragorn and Éomer seek comfort before a battle, while Faramir and Éowyn still have nightmares of the War of the Ring.
Relationships: Aragorn | Estel & Éomer Éadig, Éowyn & Faramir (Son of Denethor II), Éowyn/Faramir (Son of Denethor II)
Kudos: 11





	Two Vignettes

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, you could argue that this is out of character for Aragorn. Still, when an Aragorn-muse drags you out of a warm bed into a freezing computer room to write, you must obey.
> 
> Copyright disclaimer: this world and its inhabitants belong to the Tolkien estate. Only the interpretation and the individual words belong to me. No infringement intended, only an exploration and a celebration of his world.
> 
> Both posted on LiveJournal in December, 2004.

**Before Battle**

Once, he could not have imagined ever bedding anyone save Arwen. It would have seemed a betrayal of everything he had lived, breathed and struggled for since the early days of his manhood.

Kingship, marriage and the passage of years had not weakened that great love. If they had altered it in any way, the alteration had been to strengthen it, to make it less desperate and less easily threatened. And these days, Arwen had Eldarion to love as well -- not to mention her two daughters Luinil and Rían, the latter still a babe at her breast.

Nevertheless, in the wake of that first night with Éomer, he had all but foundered in guilt.

The impending battle had looked desperate; the Haradrim army had outnumbered theirs more than four to one. Neither he nor Éomer had truly expected to survive. They had lain together the night before, blindly seeking to kindle warmth in the face of mortality.

But the battle had ended in victory, not death. Upon his return, he had confessed to Arwen, dreading that he had destroyed what he held most sacred -- her trust in him.

Instead, he had been dumbfounded by her forgiveness. So long as what he did with the king of Rohan on campaign remained an occasional battlefield thing with another man, a thing far from home that had no bearing on what he and Arwen shared, she would take no offence at it. Perhaps she did not expect total fidelity from a Man, as she might from an Elf.

He did not claim to understand how or why Lothíriel, too, accepted it. But that was Éomer's struggle to understand, not his.

The passage of years had been less kind to Éomer than to him, of course. White now threaded the long blond hair; wrinkles marked the corners of his eyes and his mouth. But those blue eyes were as clear as ever they had been, the mind and heart behind them as keen. Éomer's will burned as brightly as it had the day of that hopeless battle before the Black Gate -- another battle that had turned unexpectedly to victory.

And tomorrow, they went into battle together again, and who but the Valar knew if either would return home to embrace his wife once more?

Aragorn opened his eyes, abandoning his musings upon the past. Éomer lay facing away from him, so that he could see only his hair fanned out upon the covers, merely yellow in the dim lamplight. It would need sunlight to transform it to gold and silver.

_A pity,_ Aragorn thought. But there was no time to wait. Before the sun's first sliver rose above the horizon, they must both be on the battlefield.

He reached over, put his hand on Éomer's shoulder, and began gently shaking him awake.

**Nightmares**

In Faramir's dream, it is happening again: their desperate flight toward the city gate that seems ever to recede, huge flying shadows swooping down upon them like hawks upon quail. Bile rising in his throat at his own helplessness, while his men scream and die around him.

The Fell Beast stooping upon him, its black wings filling all his vision. He can _feel_ the horror that rides it, feel the Black Breath blowing its darkness into his very soul.

Then the losing battle, his men screaming, falling, the misshapen snarling faces of the orcs . . . even as the greater Shadow grows in his mind and slowly drowns him.

He wakes with a strangled cry, as he so often has before. A hand shakes his shoulder, while her familiar voice repeats over and over: "It was a dream, beloved. Just a dream."

He opens his eyes to the ordinary darkness of their bedchamber. Éowyn looks down upon him, her pale hair disheveled as it flows over her shoulders and breasts. Her eyes are saddened, but not frightened. She understands all too well.

It is not always the hopeless charge and the Nazgul's Black Breath that he relives in nightmare's dark realm. Sometimes it is just the silent, gliding boat bearing his brother's corpse, appearing from the mist, and then vanishing back into it, as he stands in the water and cannot move or look away.

Other times, though less often, it is his father's madness, and the pyre, and he does not escape it until the agony of the dream-flames licking his flesh forces him to wake. He had been in the Black Breath's swoon when these things happened, but he does not have that dubious mercy in his dreams.

Éowyn understands, he knows. She has her own nightmares. Nightmares of Theodred's death, or of her uncle so lost in Wormtongue's spell that he scarcely hears her voice. Of the Witch-King towering over her, the sudden agony of broken bone, of wandering lost in dark mists. Faramir has shaken her awake, too, and held her afterward.

Sometimes, she will not weep. Other times, he has held her tightly against the sobs.

Now, as she slips her arms around him, filling the room with her presence in place of the nightmares, the Shadow dissolves again, until it is only shadow.


End file.
